The
Column is a monthly feature that explores the world
of creativity and aesthetics.
Emotion and Creativity
Mike
de Sousa, Director, AbleStable
Emotion is the engine that drives our actions.
Being aware of the forces emotions exert is
an important part
of the toolset the creative person has at their
disposal. How we feel, and how others feel about
the products of
creativity
should
always be at the forefront of the creative
act.
Emotion:
from the Latin 'emovere': to move
out.
'Emotion:
the language of a person's internal
state
of being, normally based in or tied
to their internal (physical) and external
(social) sensory feeling. Love, hate,
courage, fear, joy, and sadness can
all be described in both psychological
and physiological terms. Emotion is
the realm where thought and physiology
are inextricably entwined, and where
the 'self' is inseparable from our
individual perceptions of value and
judgment toward ourselves and others.'
www.wikipedia.org
Emotion:
A response
based in feeling and often accompanied
by physiological changes. |
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The
Need to Feel
The
need to feel and express emotion is part of our
daily experience. We meet, we ask 'how are you?'.
We receive the response 'great', 'OK', or 'not
so good', which,
in a single phrase, gives us the essential information
that enables us to judge how best to continue
and develop our exchange
from that point on.
Some
shy clear of communicating their emotional
state as doing so may communicate vulnerability,
others
come right out and say it. Whatever our approach,
emotion is key to the way we comprehend the
world.
E-motion
| !:-) |
'Smilies'
are sketchy representations created with
a few keystrokes, many of which relate
to emotion. On the Internet, a smiley is
sometimes defined as an 'emoticon' (an emotive
icon). |
Communicating wholly through
the written word is more difficult than the
more
complex and subtle aural and visual exchanges
we make through face to face contact. Smilies
are used in
contexts where communication is text based
like emails, chats, forums, and other online activities.
Smilies
can quickly communicate
an emotional state in graphical form. I've
gathered some of the most popular Smilies that
refer to emotional states of one kind or
another below.
Smilies tells us that when it comes to interpreting
human emotional states, we place tremendous importance
on searching the face for the visual clues
of mood:
Symbol |
Definition |
Symbol |
Definition |
| :-) |
:) |
smile,
happy |
:-( |
unhappy |
;-) |
wink,
jest |
:-< |
forlorn |
:-
)) |
very
happy |
{:-{ |
:-c |
definitely unhappy |
| :-
))) |
ecstatic! |
(:-( |
very
unhappy |
| }:-} |
big
grin |
8^( |
%-{ |
sad |
| I-) |
sniggering |
(:-\ |
:-< |
very sad |
| %-} |
amused |
[-( |
upset |
| :-D |
(-) |
laughing |
&-| |
&-( |
tearful |
| %-(|) |
laughing
out loud |
:,-( |
:'-( |
crying |
| :-):-):-) |
guffawing |
:'-C |
:~-( |
crying |
| :'-) |
:,-) |
crying
with laughter |
:''') |
floods of tears |
| %-<|> |
%-) |
drunk with laughter |
:-... |
heart-broken |
8-] |
in
love |
:o} |
bashful/embarrassed |
| :-I |
:-/ |
puzzled / perplexed |
:-e |
>:-( |
disappointed |
| :-& |
tongue-tied |
|:T |
not
amused |
| :-[ |
pouting |
(:-< |
(:-( |
frowning |
| =(8-0) |
=:-o |
hair-raising |
:-t |
:-z |
cross |
:-O |
shocked |
(:-& |
:-@ |
angry |
| :-o |
:-() |
shocked / awed |
:-II |
:-|| |
angry |
| (
:+( |
scared |
%-( |
>:-< |
angry and frowning |
| *
:-o |
alarmed |
> :-( |
>:-<< |
mad |
| :-[ |
critical |
~
:-( |
steaming mad |
| :-] |
:-> |
sarcastic |
>-< |
absolutely livid |
:-C |
unbelieving |
:-| |
disgusted |
=
: O |
wowed |
|-P |
revolted |
| =) |
:-o |
surprised |
:-c |
depressed |
|
Strong
Emotion
Strong
emotion is of profound importance to us all and
allows us to place certain experiences
at 'the front of the cue'.
Strong emotions like joy and sadness are associated with certain experiences
and reside in a different place in our brains than the memory of other
less powerful experiences. This allows us to quickly access the memory
of our
most significant
events. We're all familiar with the mechanism that replays those most
powerful experiences again and again, perhaps to reaffirm what is most
important to us, perhaps to make
sense of them, perhaps to warn us off placing ourselves in a similar circumstance
again.
Art and Emotion
How
we feel about visual art, music, film, or
literature defines our judgemental of it. The
written notes that may
accompany
certain artworks
may inform and enrich our understanding or
experience of it, but notes have
little affect on how we feel about art. How we
feel is essentially an intuitive, emotional response.
We like a thing
or we don't, and it is very difficult to convince
ourselves
otherwise.
Some
develop their response as an 'aesthetic'
(esthetics) from the Greek word
' ',
a branch of philosophy dealing with the
nature of beauty.
Understanding
how to manipulate emotional responses is very
important for artists,
architects, composers, choreographers,
writers, designers, and the like. Those
who produce creative products must be
in touch with their feelings, as well as
being able to empathise easily with others.
I use the term 'creative products' instead
of 'art',
which
can often be
assumed
as
excluding
creative work produced for commercial
contexts. Without empathy, the creative product
is often
far poorer.
Whether it's a painting that emotes strong
feelings, or a toothbrush that gives a
sense
of pleasure as its design fits its use
perfectly, the 'emotional value' of the work
is key
to its success.
Many
of the characteristics of creativity, such as intuition,
spontaneity, a sense of timelessness and heightened
awareness, are not rooted in the intellect but
in more fundamental emotional responses. We learn
best
when we enjoy, we create at our best when we are
emotionally charged. Creative products that have
little 'creative
charge' fail to connect, and quickly fade from
view.
Will,
Emotion, and Reason
Emotion
is a tool that helps us survive, although
showing emotion may not always be to our
best advantage. As we grow up we learn
to curb the outward appearance
of our emotions, and we keep more and more of our emotional life a secret from
others. This tendency also leads some to mistakenly think of their emotional
response to life's experiences as a weakness.
A
related view is to see emotion as the antithesis
of reason. Emotional responses
often produce undesired
feelings, which
we may wish to control but often cannot.
Emotions can produce consequences or thoughts
which we
may later regret or disagree with.
There often seems an entanglement or contradiction
between will, emotion,
and reason.
Much of art, music, film, and literature
connects with these very issues.
Without the tension between rational and
emotional
content we have no drama, without feeling,
there is no value.
We
can argue a case for something produced within
a purely logical framework, but if we have no
strong
feelings towards the subject, we will
likely move
on quickly to the next issue that
takes our flight of fancy. Those things that
are important to us however, always
have
a strong
emotional component.
Feel
Good
There are those who will say 'I'm a left brain
kind of guy', they mean their response to experiences
is analytical, logical, abstracting, sequential,
rational, verbal, and digital. Others say they're
'right brained',
that
is, they have a tendency to think intuitively,
nonverbally, without
the need for conscious thought, they see relationships,
nuances, resonances, relying
on unconscious pattern-fitting and recognition
as the basis for their understanding of the world.
The
truth is we all use both sides of our brain,
and emotion is inextricably linked to the very
core
of our
being. Our precocious ability as humans is to
learn and create. We are not single dimensional,
we all contain the seed with the promise to fulfil
a rich multifaceted potential.
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